"Student Union" - SJ Bottomley (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

something quite childish and again did it without really considering or thinking about what I was doing or how it might look. Especially to her. The one that I loved. It was as though, all of a sudden and without warning, I was on autopilot or something. Just doing things because my body and my muscles were telling my brain to do them. Not the other way around, as it should have been. Anyway, the immature act that I mentioned and that I am quite embarrassed about now was turning my back to her. I actually turned my back to her. Why on earth was I doing that? What ever possessed me to do such a thing? It doesn’t matter now, of course, and I doubt that Kathryn being Kathryn noticed it, but still...I shouldn’t have done it, I don’t think. If there was one person that I could get away with doing such a thing to then it was her, without question. Being in her own, little wonderful world of Kathryn, I doubt she even noticed that it was me putting the shopping on the belt, let alone what I was up to. You’re probably wondering why I am making a big deal out of this because it might not seem like such a bad thing, but allow me a second or two to explain. Here I was, finding myself in a situation which brought me ridiculously close to the woman that I loved so dearly and the best that I could do, the best that I could offer her was the sight of my back. It was, the way I see it now, as the ultimate act of chickening out. I was behaving like someone with a guilty conscience or someone who didn’t deserve to be where he was, interacting with who he was interacting with. As though he were unworthy. This is, I know, a load of rubbish. In its most basic sense, I was simply a customer who had decided to choose this particular checkout that she happened to be on for any number of reasons. Not necessarily because I was madly in love with the person sat behind it. It could have been that that checkout had been the first one that I had seen. Or, it may have been the one that appeared to be the least busy. Or, even, the one that was nearest from the aisle that I had come out from, once I had completed my shopping. Kathryn couldn’t possibly have guessed where I had come from, even if she did recognise straight away, who I was. Also, she couldn’t possibly have worked out that my motive for going to her, above any of the others that were available to me, was that I was deeply and passionately in love with her. I didn’t have a sign stuck to my head that said that. She had no clue of knowing this. As far as she was concerned, I had come to her, most likely, because she had been the easiest to get to. That was, naturally, assuming that she knew it was me. Which I seriously doubt, now, that she didn’t. Not to begin with, at least.
However, whether she had noticed me or not, another problem was now emerging from the horizon and it was...my father. The worst present that we ever bought my Dad for Christmas was the DVD of Peter Kay’s stand up routine at the Bolton Albert Halls. I presume that you have seen this. I presume that most people have seen it by now. What you have to understand about my Dad is that he isn’t very in touch with contemporary culture. This is most certainly not a bad thing and it is often quite amusing when I am watching television with the family and a famous celebrity comes on the screen and the rest of us know instantly who it is but Dad doesn’t have a clue. Many times this has happened and it never stops being funny. “Who are they and what do they do?” is what he often says. I like the fact that not only does he not know who the person is, their name, he also wouldn’t be able to tell you what they are famous for. It’s wonderful and I love it. This was how it used to be with Peter Kay. Before we got him the DVD, if he had seen the bloke on the television or in the newspaper or heard him on the radio or whatever, he wouldn’t have known who he was. Then, it was some bright spark’s idea to get him the aforementioned DVD as a Christmas present, one year. “Yeah, that would be a good idea”, the individual in question, who shall remain nameless, said, “I think he’ll like that...”. Well, they were right. It went on either Christmas Day or Boxing Day night and he hasn’t stopped watching it since. He must know all the words, all the jokes, by now, but he still dies with laughter every time that he sees it. Later, he branched out onto “Phoenix Nights” and that was exactly the same. He lapped that one up, as well. Both series. This did, unfortunately, though, create something of an issue. As I’m sure you will be aware, having no doubt seen it for yourself, a lot of what Peter Kay’s routine is about is the actions and mannerisms and sayings of Northern people. In particular, I think, people from the north west. And that’s fine. He’s no Eddie Izzard. He wouldn’t be able, I don’t think, to go through a whole section of his act in completely fluent French, for example. As Eddie Izzard does. To great effect, as well, I might add. Nor is he a Ross Noble. He couldn’t spend half the gig simply making up funny stuff on the spot. This is what Ross Noble is good at. Interacting with his audience, having conversations with them, attaining information from them regardless of how random or inane it might seem and then making something exceptionally funny out of it. Peter Kay’s act is nothing like either of those. It’s completely different. It is a study of people from the north west of England and it is a study used for the purpose of comedy, for the purpose of making people laugh. You might say that what he writes and performs is an accurate portrayal of people’s lives. You might also say that that is what makes it funny. Particularly to people of the area, who can understand it and therefore, laugh at it, more than someone who isn’t from the area might. What I have found, though, since the release of all of his material into the consumer market, where people can buy it and then watch it as frequently as they like; what I have found since this has happened is that now, in everyday life, people who have seen him and his work, are now repeating it for reasons of entertainment and again, to amuse others. They are, in essence, mimicking what he does. While this can be funny in itself, sometimes, most of the time, it is very unfunny and above all else, annoying. Unfortunately for me, Dad, having seen it, is one of those people. And even more unfortunately, in this instance when I was now with Kathryn, with the woman that I loved most dearly, he had decided that now might be a good time to regurgitate Peter Kay, for his own amusement. If only he knew what he was doing and who he was doing it to. Oh, God, if only he knew...
I was about halfway through the unloading of the trolley, when Dad joined me at the till. It looked as though, with relative ease, he had found the one thing in the list that he had missed and he was soon helping me out with the task in hand. Between the two of us, it didn’t take nearly as long to unpack the second half as it had done me to do the first. There had been one or two people, one or two customers, in front of me while I did this, but by the time Dad and I had finished, Kathryn was just about ready to start on us. The person immediately in front had paid and we were good to go. It was at this moment, I reckon, that she realised who her next customer was. I didn’t see anything noticeable change in her facial expression. It didn’t look as though she thought, “Oh, Christ! What’s this clown up to now? As if it weren’t bad enough that he’s been stalking me all summer...Coming in here every other day, sometimes more than once. Geez! Doesn’t he ever go away?”. I couldn’t detect anything like that. But, as I remind you again that this is Kathryn that we are talking about, Miss cool as a cucumber, Miss robotic “I am Bender, please insert girder...”; Kathryn who was never fazed or moved or shaken by anything, never mind me. I think that upon realising that her next customer was “...that Steven bloke that I used to work with once, a long, long time ago..”; upon realising this, she just looked to her left, found the first item on the conveyor belt, picked it up and began scanning that and the rest of them through. What she hadn’t accounted for was my father. I’m sure that if he even knew that the girl he was about to pull the stunt on was someone that his son used to work with, not even that she was the girl of his dreams; if he’d known this then I don’t think that he would have done it. He was only doing it for a laugh and perhaps to make himself look daft. The last thing on his mind was that his actions could and would also embarrass his son. One of the most popular gags in Peter Kay’s Albert Hall’s routine is the conversation that he plays out between the taxi driver and his customer. This, if memory serves, comes quite near the beginning of the set. At least, it does on the DVD, I think. He notes, with or without accuracy, I’m not sure which, that there are two questions that a passenger will always ask a taxi driver. These are, “ ‘been busy?” and “What time you on ‘til?”. Of course, on the recording, he gets lots of laughs from the audience as well as more than a few nods of acknowledgement and understanding. What I have found, from my own experience, is that when mimicking this in everyday life, it is not solely restricted to the environment that he chooses to display it in. It can be used anywhere, anywhere that a customer is interacting with an employee. These questions, for better or worse, are universal. Not just for taxi drivers. Even if Peter Kay only demonstrated it in this way. As soon as Dad opened his mouth to talk to Kathryn, I knew what was coming and I almost shielded my eyes, covered my face with my hands and whispered, “Oh, God, no. Please...” as he did it. With that one action, Dad had sent me rapidly in the direction of hell. I was hoping, right to the very last second, pleading for some assistance from upstairs, that he might somehow be stopped from doing it. But, I was out of luck. Kathryn, hats off to her, for her part, took it very well, completely in her stride. She just chuckled slightly and answered his questions. While, at the same time, there was something of a look in her eye that just quietly said, “Shut up, you tit”.
It was the answer to her second question that brought about the end. This was it. After today, I wouldn’t be seeing her anymore. She had just confirmed that.